


The Voices Died With Me

by VeteranKlaus



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 12:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20527811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeteranKlaus/pseuds/VeteranKlaus
Summary: Prompt: lost voice from screaming.When Klaus was fourteen, he returned from a weekend of training with no voice.





	The Voices Died With Me

When they were fourteen, one night they all stayed up. Sent to their rooms early, all siblings - except for Five, because he still hadn't come back - stood in the doorways to their bedrooms, waiting, watching, listening. Diego couldn't recall the night really being significant. The first of many, really. Klaus called Reginald a bastard over dinner and stormed out. When he came back that night, smelling of liquor and weed, Reginald had been waiting for him. They could hear the shouting match from their bedrooms, and it was mainly Klaus yelling while Reginald stood and took it with an uncaring look. Klaus threw something. Klaus yelled, and swore, and every trace of the careless, goofy kid he was was suddenly lost to pain. 

He was sent to bed and was gone by breakfast. _Training_, Reginald had said. For some reason, Klaus' powers required him to go elsewhere to train. So did Ben's, but his, at least, was understandable, but Klaus just saw ghosts. He didn't need a special area to go to. Diego knew Luther was jealous. 

A day passed. Reginald didn't allow them to bring up Klaus. He said he would be back once he had shown progress and that was all they needed to know. Reginald left at some point and came back, alone, two hours later. Time passed and their schedule continued as normal. It was the third day that Reginald left after dinner and when he came back, he had Klaus following him. They walked past them all, and Klaus didn't look at them. His eyes were glossy and clouded, lined by dark shadows, and he looked thinner and paler, as if he hadn't seen the sun or food for all three days he was gone. He went up to his bedroom, closed the door, and made not a sound.

At curfew, Diego snuck from his room to Klaus'. He gained no response when he knocked the door quietly, so he nudged it open and slid inside. All the lights were on and Klaus was writing nonsense on his walls with a crayon again.

"Hey," he said. Klaus' eyes, bloodshot but, for once, not from weed, flicked briefly to him. He didn't say anything. Diego closed the door behind him and stepped over to sit down beside him, sparing a glance at the walls. He always wrote nonsense on them, things that never made any sense. Diego didn't know why he did it.

"You were gone a while," Diego said. Klaus nodded. "Was... was training alright?" Klaus didn't say anything. Diego ducked forwards to try and catch his eyes from his ceaseless writing. "Are you okay."

Klaus, finally, turned to look at him. He still had that _look _to his eyes. Dark and sad and afraid. Something older than Klaus. Then he pointed his finger at his throat and when his lips moved, all that came out was a high pitched, "I..."

"Lost your voice?" Diego asked, eyebrows furrowing. Klaus nodded, pressed his lips together tightly, and turned away. He continued to write on the walls._My skin crawls with the seething visions of the night conspire everything..._

None of it ever made sense.

"Are you okay?"Klaus shook his head after a moment's pause. His chest heaved, his breath stuttered, and he blinked rapidly. Diego froze, but the question had triggered him and suddenly he was sobbing heavily, hands curled around his ears, and _silent. _It was a worse silence than when he had broke his jaw. An eerie, ragged silence, as if his voice had been forcefully torn from his throat.

And Klaus could remember it. When it began to falter. Sometime during the night his voice got rough, then after Reginald's visit he had pleaded it dry, and at night the monsters leaped forth with renewed vigor, and he was so sure one of them touched him, fingers solid around his throat for a second, and he had not stopped screaming until he couldn't. His pitch had wavered and broke and he sounded like a howling dog in pain, until his screaming had been nothing more than a whispered wheeze, drowned out by the monster's around him that screamed louder. Klaus remembered that very clearly, and his own wavering howl had echoed in his mind like a broken record for years. He dreamed, now, a lot of the time, even after a decade, that his voice wouldn't work him and he was trapped. Trapped with ghosts that could touch him, and would never let him go, and he couldn't scream for help.


End file.
